A New History of Jazz

Alyn Shipton presents jazz radio programs for the BBC and is a critic for The Times in London. He is the author of several books on music, as well as a music publisher and editor. He divides his time between Oxford and the French countryside. In 2010, he was voted UK Jazz Broadcaster of the Year.

Part 1 Origins: precursors - ragtime, blues, Cajun, military and brass bands, classical elements; classical jazz - New Orleans, Chicago in the 1920s, ODJB, Keppard, Oliver, Armstrong, Morton, Bix Beiderbecke; piano jazz - ragtime to stride, boogie woogie, Eubie Blake, Johnson, Walter, Smith Tatum, Ammons, Yancey; the move to larger bands - Whiteman, Goldkette, Henderson, Ellington, Russell, Goodman, Shaw, Basie, Doreys. Part 2 Interlude 1: international jazz. Part 3 From swing to bop: small groups in transition - John Kirby, Benny Carter, Coleman Hawkins, 52nd St; birth of Bebop - Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Earl Hines, Kenny Clarke, Thelonious Monk, Oscar Pettiford; how bop developed - rhythm; how bop developed - soloists. Part 4 Interlude 2: dissemination of popular music. Part 5 Consolidation of bop: Earl Miles Davis, hard bop/soul jazz; cool jazz, West Coast, Sonny Rollins. Part 6 Interlude 3: jazz singing from Armstrong to Vaughan. Part 7 New jazz: free jazz, Coltrane and Mingus, politicisation. Part 8 Interlude 4: New Orleans, traditional revival, mainstream, JATPK. Part 9 Jazz as world music: out of Africa, Latin jazz, Europe. Interlude 5: jazz singing since 1950. Part 11 Post-modern jazz: jazz fusions, big band renaissance, jazz repertory and education, urban movements, current movements.